Frost Museum of Science in Miami to open May 8

An artist rendering of the multilevel aquarium inside the atrium at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. Museum officials announced Monday that the Frost will open May 8.

An artist rendering of the multilevel aquarium inside the atrium at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. Museum officials announced Monday that the Frost will open May 8. (Phillip and Patricia Frost Museu / Courtesy)

After funding snafus that delayed its opening for months, the ambitious Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science announced Monday it will open to the public on May 8.

Early-admission tickets went on sale Monday, March 6, for the massive $305 million complex in Miami’s Museum Park. Day passes will cost $28 for adults, $20 for children ages 3 to 11 and free for children under 3, via FrostScience.org. Annual passes will cost $65 for individuals and $145-$195 for families. Miami-Dade residents receive a 15 percent discount on admission.

Opening-day tickets must be purchased at the museum’s box office on the morning of May 8, but passes for May 9 and beyond are available now on the museum’s website, museum spokesman Joseph Quinones says.

The 250,000-square-foot facility, designed by British architect Nicholas Grimshaw, will offer a martini glass-shaped aquarium full of gulfstream sharks, stingrays and other marine animals, along with a globe-shaped planetarium and other high-tech gallery spaces. The three-level aquarium’s centerpiece: a 31-foot-wide oculus, a kind of sea-bottom lens letting museumgoers peer upward at jellyfish, mangroves and other sea life.

“What will really slap you in the face when you enter the atrium is the scope of the project,” says Frank Steslow, president of the Frost Museum of Science. “Going from Coconut Grove to this new building, plenty of people are going to be surprised.” In August 2015, the museum shut down its longtime Coconut Grove home, which opened in 1949.

The museum’s new exhibits, not yet announced, will spotlight the physics of flight, the human body and mind, lasers and the solar system.

Steslow says the museum is busy planning a to-be-announced lineup of opening-day festivities, including a ribbon cutting and appearances from Miami-Dade County commissioners.

The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science is located at 1101 Biscayne Blvd., in Miami. Call 305-434-9600, or go to FrostScience.org.